601 is better than the 603
Hmm. This is something I'd like to test.
In the late '90s (like late 1996/early 1997) most Mac magazines said that, for the most part, 603e/ev and 604e/ev variants performed basically the same, and you should pick based on what else in the system you did/didn't need, e.g. it doesn't make sense to build your Avid box in a 6500 and you might not need a 9600 if you're just gonna put it in front of a kid to play Oregon Trail.
I've got G3/300 and 604ev/300 numbers, just need to pick up a 6500/300.
Another set of numbers I think would be fun are:
7200/120, PowerComputing Power120, 6300/120, 5400/120
W/re the thing that was mentioned about the 6200 and its derivatives: (6200, 6300, 5200, 5300, 1400, 2300, 5300) - the cache thing and the particular way their architecture was set up (pre-installed PPC upgrade on a platform built out of both LC III and Quadra parts...) means that those systems usually perform worse than PCI-based machines, even at the same speeds, and even with the "same" CPU, e.g. I'll expect a 6300/120 to do significantly worse than a 5400/120, let alone a 7200/120 or 7600/120.
I do have macbench 4 benches from both a 1400/166 and a 7600/120 and.... the 7600 outperforms the 1400 by a fairly wide margin, but I'm missing "newer 603s" and it's tough to extrapolate based on what I have, purely down to that platform being so weird.
On the other hand: I'd really expect the 7200/120, 7600/120, and 5400/120 to all basically land within a couple percent of each other at most things, with 604 probably takin the lead in floating point, but by how much I don't know.
One of these days, I actually have a friend holding onto a 6500/300 for me, I don't know if I want to deal with getting a 6300-5300/120 and 5400/120, I have a 604@120 card for my 8500 and a Power120 (needs PSU repairs though) but my 7200 is a /90.
